Monday, April 23, 2012 The End of Part 1 of the Long, Long, Trail

The Quality Inn was comfortable, but in spite of that I laid awake again most of the night, much as the night before. I did not know why I am suddenly having problems sleeping, but at about 6AM when I finally got up, I was very tired. It seemed to rob me to some degree of the excitement of the significance of this day.After a quick breakfast, I arrived at the airport a little before 7AM, the time of our agreed arrival. Larry was a little late, which did not break my heart since I could have a few moments to doze in the car. When Larry arrived, we opened the hanger and got the JW carriage and wing out to get it assembled and ready to fly. The carriage was pretty much ready to go, but the wing is another matter. It is a major undertaking that takes some time so spreading the wing, positioning the battens, tensioning, positioning the wing to attach to the carriage, and raising the wing into place took about an hour. Other than a couple of times I had spread the wing to do repairs, etc. the previous year, I had not actually set up the JW to fly, so for that reason, we took what seemed to be a inordinately long time to get set up.But it was finally done by about 8:30AM or so. The wind was still calm and the temperature was cool in the 40’s, I would guess. Larry got his coat and gloves, we started the engine, and out he went to the taxiway. He had decided to take off to the south on the hard-surface runway, and land on the short turf runway which parallels the main runway. I trotted out to observe and videotape the flight. After a moment I heard him apply full power and off he went. It seemed like he was off the ground in about 10 feet. The JW leaped off the runway with an attitude that said, “Why did it take so long!?!” and headed seemingly straight up, which is Jetwing’s normal takeoff attitude. Larry pulled back on the bar and started the normal climb to pattern altitude. The climb was not overly impressive but adequate to get to pattern altitude. At the end of the runway he turned on to crosswind and upwind, continued on past the end of the runway to the practice area, and did some shallow turns and other mild maneuvers. Eventually he descended and set up to land. He did a touch-and-go and again made a circuit around the area and the second time and finally did a full-stop landing.I was exhilarated! The culmination of my work had ended in success and the JW had flown. After Larry taxied over and stopped, we began the debriefing. He said everything had mechanically worked very well. The controls, balance, and general piloting experience seemed to indicate the JW was mechanically sound and flew much the same as his own JW, the only frame of reference he had. There was one exception, however. He said he thought the engine power was deficient. He had monitored the RPM on the tach, and even at full power, he could only achieve 4800RPM or so. We knew because of the 2:1 reduction drive the RPM would not be 5500RPM which is what that engine should produce, but it was a major disappointment.During the discussion, we tried to figure out how to diagnose the problem. Larry suggested we take the air filter off so we could see if the carburetor was allowing full travel of the throttle control. Larry had used the foot feed exclusively rather than the hand throttle control, so we thought maybe the foot feed was controlling things differently than the hand throttle, but that proved not to be the case. The foot feed was allowing full travel of the throttle. Larry even suggested that as I am about 70 pounds heavier than Larry, that he doubted whether the JW would climb very well with me as pilot, which was a disturbing thought.It was then that I noticed something. The plug in the fuel tank air vent had not been removed and was still pushed in. That might have impacted the fuel flow, so we removed it and I threw it away. It does not need to be in place at all times and can easily be overlooked, as it had this time. We fired up again and Larry went out again. This time as he came back, he was much more satisfied with the way the JW climbed and performed. He saw higher indicated RPM’s, maybe as high as 5150. The ultimate compliment came as he said my JW performed at least as well as his. He said he was very impressed with the climb rate.By this time, it was almost noon, and the wind gusts had again made themselves present, apparently typical with this airport. Larry said he would not recommend that I try to make my initial flight in the JW since that last flight was challenging for him because of strong gusty crosswinds close to the ground. I was disappointed, but agreed with him that I did not need to tempt fate. The main goal had been accomplished since we proved that the JW had flown and flown well and the rebuild project had proved successful.We packed everything up, loaded the trailer, and I headed for home, happy with the experience. I did not fall asleep at the wheel, a not-unthinkable situation given my lack of sleep, and I was home by about 2PM.One thing I learned today (and already knew); I am too old to routinely load and unload the trailer, assemble and disassemble the plane each time I want to fly, so I will try to find a hanger nearby to store the JW and keep it assembled all the time. That’s the goal for today.So whether or not this is the final entry in this blog, I am very happy with the outcome of this adventure.